


GONE

by holdupjustnow



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Irondad, Missing Scene, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), just feeling very salty about endgame even though i loved it, lots of emotions, the darkest timeline, the more this goes on the more trash i am for steve/natasha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-28 11:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18755761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdupjustnow/pseuds/holdupjustnow
Summary: “I should have come round when Morgan was born. I’m sorry I didn’t.”Tony stares off at the yard. He can’t bring himself to look at Steve more than he needs to. “A racoon, a blue alien and the President visited her so I think she managed fine without you.”“Hey.” And God damn that voice and the way it commands his attention. He looks at Steve and feels that raw energy he manages to project, energy that makes you feel like he could birth a hundred kittens and it wouldn’t be weird. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. How’s she doing?”That, that Tony can talk about.*One year after the snap, Steve goes to visit Tony.Now a series of stories taking place in the five years before Scott Lang reappeared.





	1. Chapter 1

**GONE**

The weight of baby Morgan is now a familiar one. He carries her in one arm, and does everything else with the other. He’s become spectacularly skilled at wielding a kitchen knife and dicing mushy carrots with one hand. Unsurprising, really. He’s an overachiever in everything he’s ever done – since when did anyone, _Pepper_ , think it’d be any different when it came to being a dad? Tony even manages to overachieve at farming, if the obscene pile of freshly picked tomatoes to his left are anything to go by.

He hears the crackle of gravel before Pepper even makes it down the stairs.

“He’s here." 

Tony puts down the knife and shifts Morgan. She’s asleep, and not due for a feed for another few hours. Pepper was in the middle of her damn afternoon nap. God damn Rogers, with his Star Spangled Bullshit. God Damn Captain American’t Keep To Himself.

“He held out pretty long.” Pepper says.

“I weep for his patience, national hero.”

Pepper walks over to him, still wiping the sleep from her eyes. She rests a hand on Morgan’s head and presses a tender kiss there. Tony feels the sudden urge to open the door, point a gun at the big blond lug on the other side, and tell him to run. This is it. Whatever Steve is here for, he doesn’t want it. Doesn’t want his forgiveness, his love, his God damn grief. He hears heavy footsteps on his wooden porch. The porch he put together while Pepper shuffled in the garden, belly round, smelling flowers. 

“Want me to take her?”

“Uh huh, yep.” Pepper takes her up and goes towards the stairs. “You can stay down here. We won’t be long.”

She gives him one of those long I-can-read-your-mind looks that she has spent decades perfecting which, not allowed, and says, “Okay, Tony.”

He elects to ignore her smug smugness and strides towards the door. He’s been waiting for this, and of course Steve is the kind of dramatic bitch to show up on the one-year anniversary. He opens the door.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting, really. He definitely wasn’t expecting Captain America. He wasn’t even expecting Steven Grant Rogers. So what else does that leave but Steve, battle worn and life worn and just all round worn out. And looking terrible. He’s got the look of someone who has been wearing a suit all day and has just changed into regular clothes (something Tony has the unique talent of being able to spot). He’s gone back to not shaving, and not sleeping apparently. 

Tony hates how happy he is to see him. Hates it, hates it so God damn much. He stares at him for a while, but Steve stares right back so he figures he isn’t being weird. Then he says, “Outside.”

Tony’s got a wrap around porch now, because he’s a real slick farmer and knows how to keep things on brand. He moves to the swing, house owner dibs of course, and Steve takes up the rocking chair opposite. It’s a miserable day out there, but Tony thinks the rain will be good for the lemon tree. 

“I should have come round when Morgan was born. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

Tony stares off at the yard. He can’t bring himself to look at Steve more than he needs to. “A racoon, a blue alien and the President visited her so I think she managed fine without you.”  

“Hey.” And God damn that voice and the way it commands his attention. He looks at Steve and feels that raw energy he manages to project, energy that makes you feel like he could birth a hundred kittens and it wouldn’t be weird. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. How’s she doing?”

That, that Tony can talk about. “She poops all day, and when she’s not doing that she’s eating, and when she’s not doing that she’s sleeping. Takes right after her old man. She keeps doing this thing where she smiles at me.” His throat tightens and he wants to go back inside right now. He wants to be around her all the time, period, full stop, goodbye.

“That’s great, Tony.” Steve’s voice is all honey warm. God damn Man with a Plan to Crumble His Reserve. The kindness doesn’t last too long and Tony’s grateful. “What you said, when you came back."

“Yes?” He pushes.

Steve sort of smiles, which Tony thinks is morbid and somehow _so Cap_. He gently shakes his head back and forth. “Some of it, you were right. Other parts, not so much.”

“You came here to tell me that?” 

“I’d marked you M.I.A, presumed dead. I was so overjoyed you were alive; I was barely keeping the smile off my face even while you were yelling at me.” Steve grins through the words and fuck if he isn’t so beautiful. Fuck if Tony hasn’t missed him. But it’s all still too awful to think about, too terrible to accept. His mind protects itself everyday. It doesn’t allow him to remember That Time anymore than it allows him to remember Pepper falling down into the fire. Because he’s a coward, God damn selfish coward, and he’ll never stop being that so long as it keeps Morgan safe.

“Why are you here?”

The smile slips from Steve’s face and Tony feels like he’s punched Santa. “I’m not here to ask for anything. I’m not – I know you’re out.” Steve shifts in his chair, crosses and uncrosses his legs. Tony won’t be the first to give in, and Steve never was one to beat around the bush. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? I needed to see you, Tony.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

Steve sighs. “It happened. They’re gone. We’re still here, you and me. God is unkind but I don’t need to make it worse. You’re my friend you annoying little shit, and we’re the luckiest people alive. I’m not going to come here every day, but it would be wrong to not come here at all.” 

“Most people just say ‘I miss you’.”

Steve holds his hand out. Tony reaches across the distance between them and takes it in his own. They hold hands for a moment and Tony’s head goes quiet in a way it hasn’t in so long. When they pull back Tony asks, “Natasha?”

“She’s not doing too hot. I haven’t heard from Thor in months, Bruce left when you did, and Clint never even checked in. He’s alive.” Steve says at Tony’s startled look. “He’s making sure some people don’t stay that way.”

“And you?”

Steve shrugs, like always putting himself last. “Falling apart at the seems, buddy. Like most people.”

“Still pining after your super solider assassin not boyfriend?”

“Bucky’s not even who I miss the most.” Steve says. The guilt is all over his face and Tony wants to bake him a cake. “I know how he felt about things. Every day he got on the other side of that life was a bonus, a gift. He would have been relieved to die.”

“This is a particularly morbid conversation, pal. Mayhap a baby lighten the mood?”

Steve’s eyes twinkle and really that’s enough. He quickly ducks into the house. Pepper is doing a very good job at pretending to read a book about fertilizer when he comes in. She only smiles when he gathers up Morgan. He wraps her up tightly in a few extra blankets and slips an Iron Man beanie on her head. It’s cold outside.

He slips back onto the porch just as the clouds break and a soft rain starts falling. Steve’s face goes soft and melts like butter at the sight of Morgan and Tony thinks, _yeah, duh. My kid Rogers, my kid is perfect._ He goes to hand her to Steve who makes a dumb face and sort of jumps.

“Oh, I uh, I don’t have to – “

“She doesn’t bite Rogers, but in saying that she is my child so anything goes.”

He shows Steve how to hold her right and shoves a lemon shaped pillow under his arm for support, although Tony is pretty sure he could hold her standing upright for 24 hours and not even feel it.

“Wow, she’s…” Steve rocks a little in the chair. Captain America coos at his daughter. “I haven’t held a baby since…well, I haven’t held a baby.”

“That should be illegal. You should be constitutionally obligated to hold a baby once a year at least.”

Steve brings her little head to his face and breathes her in, that one of a kind baby smell. He kisses her right on her Iron Man beanie covered head, and Tony lets himself enjoy it. The sight of Captain America holding a baby in a rocking chair with rain pouring down behind him would surly give a lesser man an aneurysm. Lucky he’s made of harder stuff.

He hears Steve clear his throat, but he’s not really. He’s crying, very suddenly and very sadly. The moment of happiness is gone, brief and impossible to grasp like smoke, and he remembers again the truth. He almost throws up. He almost screams, he almost -

“I miss _everyone._ ”

And Tony knows Steve’s telling the truth. He really would miss every single person, every life that was taken. Every child, mother and father. Every bird and every ant. Every bit of life that was _taken_ from them, life in all it’s impossible realness _I don’t want to go, Mr. Stark_ God damn never ending unless you’re real fucking unlucky life. 

He doesn’t give Steve any niceties. There aren’t any left, not for the likes of them. Instead he lets Steve hold Morgan for a while then takes her back in his arms where she belongs. Without her he’d be broken. Just like Steve, Natasha, Clint, Thor and Bruce. Without her, what reason to go on? No God damn reason at all.

“It’s getting cold. I’m gonna take her in.” 

Steve rises and doesn’t wipe at his cheeks. He’ll be in the rain soon anyway. He moves closer to Tony and hovers one huge hand over Morgan’s head. “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”

“Are you really dropping a Bible verse before you leave?”

“It’s a prayer. For healthy children.” He glances around the house, taking it in for the first and last time. “Will you ask Pepper to give Nat a call?” 

“I can manage that.”

Steve nods and makes to leave. Tony gets the dumb words out because he feels like this could be it _forever_ and there’s no time left for regret. “I’m sorry about Barnes. The kid’s been through enough. I – I forgive him. You too, Cap. Stay sharp out there.”

And now _he’s_ made Captain American cry. Tony’s not crying, no way. Those are Morgan’s tears that jumped off her face and onto his. “Deal stays the same. You need me, you call me. I love you, Tony.” 

He leaves. Tony takes Morgan inside and picks up the knife. He can do a lot with one hand.


	2. Chapter 2

He rolls away from her on the bed. Natasha pulls the sheets up to cover herself and rolls to face the window. She stares blankly, even though the blinds are down. Staring at nothing at all. He sits up and runs a hand through his hair. Greasy. He smells. Like dirt and sweat and her sex. He promises himself that was the last time. That’s what he’s been saying every time. 

“I’m going out. Do you want to come?”

She doesn’t say anything. He gets out of bed and takes a quick shower, just long enough to rid himself of whatever shame the hot water can wash away. He scrubs at his nails like always but he can still feel the ash that used to be Bucky’s body underneath. When he comes out of the bathroom dressed, she’s still lying there, staring.

“I’ll go past that bodega you like on my way back, okay?”

Very quietly, “Okay.”

He grabs his notebook, his coat and lets New York swallow him whole.

*

They’ve always been ying and yang. After the snap, Natasha chose to sleep. Steve chose to move. The more you move, the less you think, and right now that’s about all he can manage. He spends his days walking and when something finds him, he fixes it.

One day, it’s a woman who had a car plow through the front of her house. No driver inside. Steve clears all the debris from her living room and uses one of Tony’s toys to laser cut the car into pieces, then clears that too. Another day, it’s finding two little boys holding hands and crying in the street. They’ve lost their mom, but say they know to stick together and that’s why they’re holding hands. Steve gets their names (most people will tell Captain America anything), looks them up in the database and carries them the ten blocks back to their house. No dad. He takes them to the police.

Today, it’s mostly talking to folks. A few people walk right up to him and throw their arms around him. He let’s them. If this is what people need, what he can give, he’ll give it. They hold him and weep. Men and women, old and young. Some thank him, which makes him sick. Others spit at him, which makes him glad. He’s the one who messed up. Stark said it himself. He wasn’t there when the family needed him.

He’s walking through his old neighborhood. It always seems to be where he ends up. Brooklyn, born and bred and drawn to like a magnet. He’s keeping his head down when he hears the singing.

He looks around and spots an older black woman sitting on her front steps. She’s…using a washboard? It’s both a familiar sight and an oddity. He walks up to her and puts on his best smile. She spots him straight away. He’s sort of a hard fella to miss.

“Oh, don’t mind me – “

“No please, keep singing, it’s nice.”

“I don’t have much of a voice.”

“I like your voice. Can I help you?”

“You can hang these up, over there.”

She nods at a bucket full of wet clothes. Her hanging line is in her fenced off little front lawn, so he takes the bucket and starts wringing the clothes out. They work like that for a while. She sings and scrubs, sings and scrubs. He hangs.

“How come the washboard?”

“Power’s been out here the last week.”

Steve frowns. “The power came back on a few days after it happened.”

“Sure, maybe where you live. It comes and goes around here.”

“I’ll look into it for you. You got a grandchild?” Steve pegs up another onesie. This one is covered in tiny Hulks. It makes him…feel old.

The woman glances at him and sort of laughs. “No, no. The lady upstairs got two kids. She was a teacher before. They’re trying to get the schools running again so she doesn’t have much time for washing clothes.”

“That’s real nice of you to help.”

“Being real nice is all we got left.”

“You got that right.”

Once the washing is done, she offers to make him tea and Sarah Rogers didn’t raise a heathen so he accepts. He walks through her kitchen and the woman potters around. She grabs two mugs that looked hand spun, says to call her Lily, and uses a propane tank to light a burner that boils their tea. Oolong.

“It’s freezing in here.” Steve says. He’s not cold, he doesn’t really feel that sort of thing, but for an older woman it must be tough. “Have you reported the power outage?”

“Mr. Rogers.” She gives him a smirk. “We aren’t exactly living in a time where things can be taken care of. I’m guessing that’s why you’ve been out there walking round these streets like a ghost.”

“Just trying to do my part.”

“There must be something more important you could be doing with your time then helping me with my laundry.”

Steve lets out a sigh and smiles. “I don’t know, Lily. I think this is important. Being real nice. Talking to people. Remembering why we’re all…just remembering.”

She nods and taps her knuckles on her wooden table. “How many?”

“How high can you count?”

She shakes her head but her eyes are fond. “How many that matter to _you_?”

Steve mulls it over. “Two.”

“The lady upstairs. She had three kids. And I’m sitting here, talking to you.”

“It never goes how it should. I’ve gotta hit the road.”

“Sure.” 

He takes out his notepad and writes. _Lily. Brooklyn. Power outage._ “I’ll get someone to see about the power.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rogers.”

Lily puts a hand on his arm and grips him for a moment, and then he goes. Steve stops by the place and gets Natasha the ham and cheese. She likes this one because they put mustard and pickles in their ham and cheese which, weird, but who is Steve to judge. He grabs her a few other things she’d never ask for – chewing gum, a Mills & Boon, moisturizer.

When he gets back to the tower he finds her exactly where he left her. She’s managed to put a t-shirt on at least. He walks so he’s standing in front of her on the bed and kneels. Her eyes peek open, squinting at him in the dark.

“Hey.”

Her lip trembles. “Hi.”

“I got you the ham and cheese.”

“Thanks. Steve…I can’t do this any more. You’re all I got, all I got left.”

He swallows even as his chest constricts in fear. He knows he would have kept going to her until she put her foot down. She was always stronger than him.

“No more. Now, sit up for me slugger. Let’s get some food into you, then maybe take a shower.”

Nat pushes herself up and lets Steve hand her a sandwich. He perches on the edge of the bed and eats his own pastrami. She focuses those big eyes on him. “It’s not cause you’re no good in bed. You are.”

“I know I am.”

That manages to make her smile a little. “I owe Agent Carter a thank you card?”

Steve has to swallow his smile, his hurt and his pastrami. “You owe Sergeant Barnes a thank you essay.”

Natasha’s husky laugh makes him feel warm from head to toe. They’ll be okay.

It’s been one month since the snap. Maybe they’ll all be okay.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sigh...5 years is such a long time. i think that steve and nat definitely bumped uglies at least once. thoughts?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY progressively becoming natasha/steve trash as i go on

Natasha hears the elevator ding open and with it Steve’s heavy footsteps. She quickly meets him by the elevator where he’s shaking the snow from his hair. 

“POTUS says hi.” He says, grinning. “Gosh, thank God you’ve got the heaters on.”

“Did he? Why do I think you’re pulling my chain?” She helps him tug off his heavy overcoat and hangs it on the hat stand by the elevator.

“Okay, so it wasn’t exactly ‘say hi’ but it also wasn’t ‘don’t say that name in my presence, Rogers’.”

She laughs and pushes him towards his room. “Get changed, soldier. Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She watches him go. She’s only human after all and the sight of a retreating Steve Rogers…it’s almost enough to make her miss the days when they were sleeping together. Almost. What they have now is so much – more. Just _more._ They never discussed it, moving into the same living quarters in the Avengers compound. It’s just that everyone else moved out (or was gone) and most days it’s just the two of them. First it was movie nights, then lunch, then Natasha started working out of his office instead of hers, and then it became their office. They sleep in their own rooms mostly, and they haven’t had sex since Natasha called it quits on that years ago. But there are still nights, when the compound is quiet and her head is screeching, that she ends up under the covers with his arms wrapped around her.  

Natasha goes back to the living room, giving everything a quick once over. She hopes he likes it. Knows he will. She feels a bit of pride swell in her chest. She goes to the kitchen and turns the oven off, snatches up two glasses and the bottle of red she’d picked out earlier. She takes a steadying breath then walks into the living room. That’s where Steve finds her.

“…kept trying to explain that we’re lucky enough the Dow held after that stunt he pulled back in October, but you know Ellis – “

As soon as he walks into the living room he stops hard in his tracks. Natasha wishes she had a camera to capture that wonderful dumbstruck look on his face. She’s rearranged the usually sleek and modern living room into a den of blankets and pillows, with candles lit on every available surface. In the middle of the room she’s taken out their coffee table where they regularly sit and have their morning coffee and read the headlines in favor of a picnic blanket set for two. In the corner of the room stands a tall pine tree decorated with tinsel.

“Natasha.” The serious note in his voice snaps her to attention. Has she screwed up? It’s too much, too much like before, which they don’t get to have anymore – “You did this?”

“Merry Christmas.” She says sheepishly, holding up the glasses.

He looks around the room and slowly starts to shake his head. “You’re crazy.” But he’s smiling, then he’s laughing and she laughs a little too. “Come here.”

She puts the wine and glasses on the picnic blanket then hurries into his open arms. The familiarity of him overwhelms her, his arms wrapping around her small frame like they do so well. He smells like wet snow and and smoke, and that Steve smell that’s like clean laundry. They stay like that until Natasha remembers.

“Oh, the pig!”

She rushes to the kitchen to sound the Steve’s gentle sniggers. She quickly plates up the roast, pie, vegetables, and cheeses. Steve comes in after her and helps her bring it all out to the picnic blanket.

“Of course you’re some kind of master chef. And here I am thinking you can barely string together a PB and J sandwich.”

“You’ll never know all my secrets, Rogers. Where’s the fun in that?”

She pours them each a glass of Pinot Noir. Not that Steve can get drunk, but it’s the flavor that counts. She serves him a piece of the pork pie. “Sorry I didn’t go for turkey. This is, um, actually a Russian Christmas thing.”

“It’s great.” Steve says, already shoveling it down. She rolls her eyes. There’s no such thing as too much food with him around.

“You were telling me about the Dow?”

Steve nods. “Ellis really should count his blessings. After his damn speech in October, I can’t believe he’d have the guts to go touting about survivor’s rights…”

And so they go, back and forth. Steve rants about the President’s pigheadedness, Natasha tells him about the butcher who sold her the pig and how he’d worked his shop everyday for 14 years and didn’t stop even for the snap. Steve laughs his way through a story about Bucky cooking an actual rat for Christmas one year when they were kids because it was the depression and _I’m trying my best Stevie,_ Natasha goes over Rhodey’s report from his last field hospital visit to Columbia. It’s the first time they’ve celebrated Christmas since the snap, four years ago. The first time she’s let them.

Natasha loves Clint. They are one and the same. Cut from the same cloth, made of the same bad stuff. There’s not a person alive who knows her like he does. A part of that is because – who else could? They’re stuck with each other and she’s grateful for that. To know her other half is out there, fighting like she is, always will, always looking over his shoulder for her.

But Steve _chose_ her, and he keeps choosing her. He doesn’t know everything about her, but he doesn’t ever ask for more. Even when she’s lied to him, even when she stood by Tony, even when she fell apart after the snap while he held it together – he comes marching back. If he’s stupid or just has no where else to go, she’s past caring. She’ll take what he can give and offer it back in spades. That’s what they do. Tit for tat. And if a part of her burns because Clint ran away after it happened while Steve stayed, then so be it.

Two bottles later, Natasha smirks. “Really? Not even a little buzzed?”

“I could run the Boston Marathon, eat another pig and drink your weight in beer right now – this metabolism don’t quit.”

“Truly, what a burden. To look that buff all day, every day _and_ you get to eat cake. I feel so bad for you.”

“Do you know how many people have pinched my butt over the years? It is a burden, Romanov.”

“As a former pincher of your butt, I don’t really have a leg to stand on.”

He laughs, one of those great Steve laughs where he throws his head back and clutches his chest. She uncrosses her legs and sways to her feet. She doesn’t have a super soldier stomach and the wine has gotten to her head. “Cake?”

“I’ll get it. You take it easy champ, you’ve done enough for tonight.”

Natasha certainly isn’t going to stop Captain America from washing the dishes and fetching her cake, so she takes her glass to the couch, tucks herself in and throws a blanket over her legs. She sits there happily for a while as Steve cleans up, watching the fake fire flicker on their flat screen. Eventually, Steve pads quietly back into the room and hands her a plate with a healthy slice of carrot cake. Steve plops down on the opposite end of the couch, and their feet tangle together under the blanket like clockwork.

“ _How._ ” He asks, looking annoyed, “ _How_ do you know carrot cake is my favorite?”

“I’m a spy?”

“Really, Nat.”

She kicks his legs and laughs. “Are you kidding? You wouldn’t shut up about it that time we were in Amsterdam for that thing with the charities, and Tony told you they invented carrot cake in some house we walked past. Which, not true, very not true.” Steve sputters and starts to talk so she presses on. “And you kept dropping these very unsubtle hints that you could definitely go for a slice if we happened to pass a bakery. Vision phased into a closed diner and stole a whole cake just to shut you up. You went back the next morning and left a twenty because you felt bad.”

“I feel attacked.” Steve says with a pout. Natasha laughs at him and he lets her. He’s smiling too. She picks at the cake but is already so full, so she puts it on the floor. Steve inhales his slice and puts his plate on the floor too. She doesn’t wait to be asked, and doesn’t ask permission. She crawls on the couch up his body and settles on his chest. He puts one arm around her and the other behind his head.

“Thank you for doing this.” He says softly. “I know you weren’t…ready. Last year.”

“I don’t think I was really ready this year either.”

“Well, I’m proud of you.” He settles into the couch more, stretching and coming to rest more entangled around her. “You’re my best friend, Natasha.”

Her throat goes dry and she hopes he can’t feel how hard her heart is beating. “What about Barnes?”

Steve sounds totally, completely unaffected when he says, “Bucky is gone.”

“What about Tony?”

“Tony hates me.”

“No he doesn’t.”

“Even if Bucky walked through that door right now, it wouldn’t change anything between us. We got through this together. If there’s one thing I wouldn’t change about the last four years, it’s us being together. Although, if Buck’s on the other side of that door I wouldn’t be mad about it either.”

She laughs against his chest and tries to blink back her tears. “Will you ever tell me about him? The whole truth?”

“You’ll never know all my secrets, Romanov. Where’s the fun in that?”

She pokes him where she knows he’s ticklish and it works. He squirms and pinches her back. “Tell me one true thing.”

“Hmm.” He puts his arm back around her and starts passing his hand up and down her arm. “The first time I kissed him, he socked me in the jaw.”

“Why?”

“Being queer, it wasn’t just frowned upon in those days. It was against the law.” Steve sighs. “I think he was scared. At the time I thought it was because he wasn’t, you know. He was a real ladies man.”

“And you weren’t?”

He laughs. “I was a Bucky’s man. A one-woman guy, a real straight shooter. No one was sweet to me like my number one guy.”

“And now I’m your number one guy.”

“No.” He presses his lips to her hair, a phantom kiss. “You’re my best gal.”

Natasha holds him closer.


End file.
